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Tuition fees are very much in vogue at the moment, given the prospective hike in fees which UK students can expect to be paying soon.If attending a collegiate demonstration and rocking a police van from side to side with your peers isn’t quite your thing, you could always try different tack. Why not take a leaf out of US blawgger Ruth Carter’s book.I was fascinated to read a post from a her blog, the Undeniable Ruth, which appeals to her readers for sponsorship to help her pay her law school fees. Whatever your feelings about this approach, it’s certainly an interesting idea. From my perspective, I’m not sure whether this counts as evidence of good entrepreneurial flare, a quirky idea to help cover the spiralling costs of tuition or brash impertinence.Ruth, who’s a law student at Arizona State University, describes her sponsorship scheme as follows:When I applied to law school, the average debt for a student graduating from my program was ~$50,000. Today, the average debt is over $89,…

Although spam has been one of the scourges of the internet for several years, most spam filters are now good enough for you not to have to worry (or even think) about it. That’s certainly true of Gmail. Spam comments on blogs, however, are a very different matter.All bloggers must be hit by this menace – I know I am. Most of us make use of word verification technology to help prevent spam attacks from bots but this does nothing to stop somebody sitting in India who’s being paid to repeatedly add spam comments to a blog post for SEO purposes. For whatever reason, today’s been a particularly bad one on Law Actually; they’ve been spamming the s**t out of me.Unless and until the spam filter functionality which blogspot recently started featuring gets a lot better, the only effective way of combating it is a very manual approach - by deleting the offending comments. That’s not great, but doing nothing is definitely not an option.I’ve always regarded a blog as more of a dynamic convers…

Introducing relax-a-law. Over 6 hours of recorded audio comprising 101 deep breathing and relaxation exercises designed specifically for busy lawyers. Now available for digital download.Crazy long hours? Manic case load? Clients screaming for results? Hounded by the Solicitors Regulation Authority? Close your mind to all these worries and more and just drift away on a sensual journey into the unknown, with the soothing voice of Johnny Squaharlow.

Relax-a-law deep breathing exercises can be done anywhere: at your desk, in the boardroom, on the train - even in open court.So the next time you’re stuck on a dreary conference call that seems it’ll never end, just stick them on mute and bung in your earphones. Comes with a complementary set of massage oils.Customer Testimonials:“It’s brilliant, I feel so much more relaxed thanks to relax-a-law. (I did get some funny looks from co-workers, though, with my heavy breathing. Actually, they’ve reported me to HR. But still, I’ll be much…

The office is gearing up for the Secret Santa draw later this week. I’m actually going to miss the Christmas ‘do’ this year due to travel plans but I thought I’d show willing by participating in the secret-santa-yankee-swap routine. As painful as it might be.Whilst secret santa exchanges tend to be a universal disappointment throughout offices the world over, heaven help anyone who tries to avoid them by pleading poverty or some other excuse. Worst still, never, ever say you’ll do it and then try and pull out. The organiser has decided to try and get participants to sign a gentlemen’s agreement to prevent a bevy of withdrawals late in the day. Good luck relying on that one.And who said the spirit of Christmas was dead?Anecdotally, it seems that people have started Christmas shopping earlier than ever this year. It’s still not quite hitting my radar yet, but I don’t think I’ll be able to ignore it for too long. Plus, the infamous Coca Cola ‘Holidays are Coming’ ads have already star…

Given my Cornish roots, (and clearly innocent mind) I was initially slightly puzzled as to how the use of ‘pasties’ would be of useful application in shielding your modesty whilst going through airport scanners. After all, hot pastry snacks and underwear, seldom go hand in hand – even in Cornwall.Anyway, if you’re not up to speed with exactly what a ‘pastie’ is in this context, here’s the deal.I naturally took the concept of Flying Pasties as a spoof initially. On closer inspection, clearly it is not. Flying Pasties are rubber pads that you place over your nether regions so that anyone reviewing your image on a full body scanner doesn't see anything that you wouldn't want to expose without first being taken out for dinner.Flying Pasties aren't stickers or paper cut-outs. They're 2mm thick pieces of rubber that adhere to your skin to cover your breasts and genitalia. According to the manufacturer, when your image appears on the full body scanner monitors, areas of sk…

Given that today is a potentially historic day for Royal Mail, I thought ‘posting’ this would be particularly apt! ;-)I’m sure we can all relate to it:Originally seen here.That said, I don’t think it tells the full story in the case of UK deliveries. I’ve heard it rumoured that certain posties are in the habit of leaving householders a P739 card, (more commonly known as a ‘sorry you were out’ card) when, in fact, they hadn’t left the house all morning. This isn’t due to the postman’s quiet knocking, nor a malfunctioning door bell. Rather they sneak up to your house with all the cunning and stealth of an SAS sniper and leave the card before creeping away because they haven’t got your parcel with them at all. It’s back in the depot!! On busy days, they only take a portion of the bulkier items on their rounds to help spread the load over the week.Sneaky. (If it’s true, of course!)

The following email plopped into my inbox a while back but I’ve been a little slow in answering it. To partly cover up my tardiness, I though that rather than just giving my own views on this, I might throw it out to the whole blawgosphere – as one of my ‘mailbag’ features.So, what did law graduate Jennifer have to ask?

“Hey

I am jennifer XXXX from india.I have currently finished my bachelors in legal sciences. I have the option of transferrin my credits and joinin law school in the uk. The issue is that it is very expensive. Will i be able to repay a loan with a part time job? Mostly i should be studyin in london. Is it really worth all the trauma? I mean emotionally,mentally and physically. Out of 10 how much would you rate the course as tough? Considering i am a little gullible is it ok to come there? Will i get an oppurtunity to grow or will it blow me away in the very beginning? Also if the environment is going to be extremely negative due to the competitiveness then …

From the Metro 03/11/10: A police marksman has been accused of putting song titles in evidence he gave at the inquest of a barrister shot during an armed siege.The Metropolitan Police firearms officer, known only as Alpha Zulu 8 (AZ8), allegedly mentioned [song titles] during his verbal testimony on the death of Mark SaundersIt was not confirmed what the song titles are said to be. However, a review of the evidence has led to speculation about examples.Ah – so it’s speculation then… At one point he used the phrase ‘enough is enough’, – the subtitle of single No More Tears by Barbra Streisand and the name of a track by US band Stick To Your Guns.He also said ‘point of no return’ – a Duran Duran hit – and used the words ‘line of fire’ recorded by rock band Journey.He declared in one sentence ‘I am kicking myself’, which is the title of a song by New York rockers As Tall As Lions. The officer described how ‘in quiet moments I think if there was another way we could have done it’.…

Michael is a practising lawyer and accomplished cynic from the UK. He’s been blogging since his student days and can’t quite bring himself to hang up his blogging gloves just yet (they’re fingerless gloves, obviously).
He loves fussing over trivialities, seeking comfort from repetitive activities, idly reminiscing and moaning about things.